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Why doesn't Mod3 user interface make reading alerts easier?
- Thread starter Fernand
- Start date
Backpacker42
Member
I totally agree that the fonts are too small for almost everything except for speed. I have 20/10 vision, but only at a distance. Like the majority of people over 50, and almost everyone over 60 I have presbyopia so I have great difficulty focusing well enough at close range to make out small fonts - for instance tire pressure, mileage and charge state - which is very inconvenient when driving.
Why can't they make the screen user configurable like any modern OS? I'd get rid of the map and the car graphic - neither of which I use, and put the half dozen controls I do use on a regular basis and which are currently buried in menus along the bottom - in a readable font. Clean. Readable. User friendly.
Sorry - the above attachment was not supposed to go out. I thought that was part of the profile and when I tried to delete it it posted.
@Backpacker42 I tried quite hard to find a connection for your photo. Good exercise for the brain.
I can understand Tesla wanting to set some standards, so anyone getting in any model 3 feels immediately at home. But It WOULD be great to have more flexible screen arrangements attached to our profiles, like seat and steering wheel position.
I keep a separate pair of weaker reading glasses in the car (and on my nose) so I can clearly see the screen. I can read everything just fine straight on. But not 10 pt fonts out of the corners of my eyes. Maybe I'm dyslexic or need to take a speed reading course.
Maybe it's an old-fashioned prejudice that it's unsafe to take eyes off the road. Maybe we need to just trust the screen, and train this way:
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I can understand Tesla wanting to set some standards, so anyone getting in any model 3 feels immediately at home. But It WOULD be great to have more flexible screen arrangements attached to our profiles, like seat and steering wheel position.
I keep a separate pair of weaker reading glasses in the car (and on my nose) so I can clearly see the screen. I can read everything just fine straight on. But not 10 pt fonts out of the corners of my eyes. Maybe I'm dyslexic or need to take a speed reading course.
Maybe it's an old-fashioned prejudice that it's unsafe to take eyes off the road. Maybe we need to just trust the screen, and train this way:
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morningstar
Member
Totally agree with the OP. These messages/warnings are too small and don't stay up long enough. I usually have no idea what they say because they're gone by the time I can safely look at them. I like the idea of having them texted or emailed to me for review later. There is something audible to call our attention to the messages so how about an audible reading of the message. Though this won't help deaf drivers.
I also had a model S loaner for a couple days and really liked the way things were placed in that car. Some info was behind the steering wheel where it's placed in ICE cars. Doesn't take your eyes off the road so much there, but it was still pretty small font. I also liked that I could change more things with an actual button on the steering wheel. I hate that I have to take my eyes off the road to change the temperature or adjust side view mirrors or switch from radio to music on my phone. I have to look at the screen to see where to click to activate the function I need. If it were a physical button on the steering wheel (as it was on the S I had) then I could just feel for it. To be fair, I did have to scroll through a screen that showed behind the steering wheel to activate different functions for that button. But I still felt like it was safer than adjusting things in the M3.
I also had a model S loaner for a couple days and really liked the way things were placed in that car. Some info was behind the steering wheel where it's placed in ICE cars. Doesn't take your eyes off the road so much there, but it was still pretty small font. I also liked that I could change more things with an actual button on the steering wheel. I hate that I have to take my eyes off the road to change the temperature or adjust side view mirrors or switch from radio to music on my phone. I have to look at the screen to see where to click to activate the function I need. If it were a physical button on the steering wheel (as it was on the S I had) then I could just feel for it. To be fair, I did have to scroll through a screen that showed behind the steering wheel to activate different functions for that button. But I still felt like it was safer than adjusting things in the M3.
It is pretty clear that the UI designers sat at a PC with a mouse to test out the design instead of in a bumpy moving car with a touch screen.
Come on Tesla...you've built a great car...now improve the UI so the average person will accept this rather than just all us early adopters.
For example, my spouse won't drive this car -- so that is a lost sale on a second one.
- bigger fonts for driving info (like errors) and info like time, temp, etc.
- bigger touch points
- error messages should stay on screen longer and be stored in a history buffer in case you missed something
(I did get one "info" message recently that moved to an "i" button on the left but it went away too soon too)
- data that is shown over the top of the map can be hard to read depending on the map -- fix this
- better controls for audio that can safely be done while driving, such as podcast ff/rw and slider controls
- more voice controls for stuff you have to use the screen for, such as HVAC, seat heaters, etc.
We have buttons and 2 scroll wheels. But they don't apply to the screen. Messages are too small and fleeting. Touchpoints are too hard to hit. Navigating menus in a moving car is absurd. Voice control, which could REALLY help, is surprisingly impotent.
Our stupid PHONE can interpret commands like "when was king Louis XVI arrested?" - and it will tell you. Try it. August 10, 1792.
But our amazing, modern Tesla Model 3 can't even react to any variant of "set cabin temperature to seventy degrees". I've nearly parboiled my cojos rather than tap into trying to raise the AC fan speed.
I felt like I'd discovered the source of the Nile when I got it to react to "cancel navigation".
With V9 I used to say "Play Prince Purple Rain", and it would. With V 10 it's regressed to throwing up a page full of vaguely related choices to tap through. Is this a way to force employment of a media manager co-pilot?
I've given up on phoning anyone by name. It presents a long skinny column of maybes - to scroll through - but I can't see more than the first 16 or so characters. Then tapping one doesn't seem to do anything. I'd rather keep my eyes on the road and live. Then, wow, I discovered I can say "Call" then spell out the number. But come ON!
The games? Cool. Unless you crash while pecking at the touchscreen, because "the boys" were busy wasting brain cells on adapting Asteroids to a multi-core CPU and an HD display, rather than modernizing the Model 3 user interface, which seems almost stuck in the age of Asteroids on Window 1.01, on a 80x24 character CRT.
OK, great car. Love it. Now is it unreasonable to want at least a few brain cells applied to these ergonomics issues?
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Our stupid PHONE can interpret commands like "when was king Louis XVI arrested?" - and it will tell you. Try it. August 10, 1792.
But our amazing, modern Tesla Model 3 can't even react to any variant of "set cabin temperature to seventy degrees". I've nearly parboiled my cojos rather than tap into trying to raise the AC fan speed.
I felt like I'd discovered the source of the Nile when I got it to react to "cancel navigation".
With V9 I used to say "Play Prince Purple Rain", and it would. With V 10 it's regressed to throwing up a page full of vaguely related choices to tap through. Is this a way to force employment of a media manager co-pilot?
I've given up on phoning anyone by name. It presents a long skinny column of maybes - to scroll through - but I can't see more than the first 16 or so characters. Then tapping one doesn't seem to do anything. I'd rather keep my eyes on the road and live. Then, wow, I discovered I can say "Call" then spell out the number. But come ON!
The games? Cool. Unless you crash while pecking at the touchscreen, because "the boys" were busy wasting brain cells on adapting Asteroids to a multi-core CPU and an HD display, rather than modernizing the Model 3 user interface, which seems almost stuck in the age of Asteroids on Window 1.01, on a 80x24 character CRT.
OK, great car. Love it. Now is it unreasonable to want at least a few brain cells applied to these ergonomics issues?
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notAnExpert
Member
I can understand that a project to completely revamp the GUI could be a major undertaking and could take a while. But the car already has a decent voice command interpretation framework. I'd imagine it is a lot less effort (than rewriting the whole GUI) to offer voice commands for every operation. It currently requires cumbersome and unsafe screen interaction to do even some of the simplest things while driving. I wish Tesla would prioritize working on complete voice control.
FWIW, voice control has its own limitations in a car. I can hardly ever enter a Navigate or a Bug Report, before someone in the car will start talking and ruin it. Still, this IS probably a very practical least effort direction.
The current UI works better on the split screen of the Model S. The port to a single screen on the Model 3 is not spectacularly user-friendly, as per the comments above.
I think all of us here are just asking they put some effort into gradually improving the ergonomics for the Model 3 (and Y).
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The current UI works better on the split screen of the Model S. The port to a single screen on the Model 3 is not spectacularly user-friendly, as per the comments above.
I think all of us here are just asking they put some effort into gradually improving the ergonomics for the Model 3 (and Y).
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notAnExpert
Member
Absolutely agree! I just don't know if Tesla even thinks there is an issue to be addressed. Other than some messages from a few of us here, I don't see any serious outpouring of complaints from the Tesla owners at large. I hope Tesla is aware of the GUI challenges.
In my opinion, the big screen is great for output, but not always so great for input. The tiny font and touch points are hard to accurately touch while driving and it takes eyes away from the road for too long. I think Tesla is missing out on exploiting two powerful input mechanisms it already has: 1. Voice, and 2. Steering wheel controls.
I think it will be a great project for a graduate student in UX to create a revamped user interface prototype for Tesla Model 3, and hopefully get a job at Tesla upon graduation
My guess: Probably because output goes to fixed size windowed "areas". These go to different screens, even, on Model 3, Model S and Model X. Changing font size in such an area could truncate text or make things worse. It might require major changes to the common base, as they have to deal with 3 different car models. In overall priorities, I can understand this not being a first tier project. And people get used to managing, however funkily.
Still, we would like some attention to the issues.
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morningstar
Member
My wife is rebelling. I often ask her to try to catch some of the (new?) messages before they vanish, but she's "tired of trying". Fortunately this isn't (yet) significantly affecting our relationship, but I'm going to have to stop asking for the impossible before she goes ballistic.
Yo, Tesla, if a message is so illegible and fleeting that even a passenger with nothing else to do can't catch and absorb it, it couldn't POSSIBLY be important. Right?
Yo, Tesla, if a message is so illegible and fleeting that even a passenger with nothing else to do can't catch and absorb it, it couldn't POSSIBLY be important. Right?
Yes!
For example, today, for about the second or third time in 100 times I saw messages saying that AutoPilot would end in 100 feet, then maybe 50 ft, then 25 feet. This was as I was exiting a freeway. Normally I don't see this because I'M LOOKING AT THE TRAFFIC snf the messages are tiny and go by real quick.
These messages are clearly there for the SW engineers that that are testing this.
But if you were to want these messages they would be formatted like this:
WARNING: Prepare to take control. AutoPilot ending in XX ft. OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
Where XX changes as you approach the cutoff point. And OOOO is a bar that shrinks over the distance to the cutoff point.
That way the message text stays constant and readable (if it were larger) and the variable distance changes over time.
